The First Australians Adventure

BBC Four Collections,

specially chosen programmes from the BBC archive.

For this collection, Sir David Attenborough

has chosen documentaries from the start of his career.

More programmes on this theme

and other BBC Four Collections are available on BBC iPlayer.

DIDGERIDOO PLAYS

ABORIGINAL CHANTING

This is the north coast of Australia,

but the big modern cities of Australia -

Sydney, Melbourne, Adelaide - they're a very, very long way from here.

They're several thousand miles southwards,

that way, across the desert.

In fact, they're as far away from me here as London is from, say,

the centre of the Sahara.

Across here, across the Gulf, lies the huge island of New Guinea.

I'm sitting in an encampment of a tribe of Aborigines

called the Gunavidji.

The Gunavidji are, in pidgin, called solwara folk, solwara people.

That is to say, people who spend most of their time down by the sea.

And they come during the dry season,

and camp here in bark encampments like this one.

They spend a great deal of their time around in the sea, fishing

and hunting among the rocks for food.

The Gunavidji, in fact, are not desert dwellers

like many Aboriginal tribes, but are primarily seamen.

Their craft is about as simple as any in the world, a dugout canoe.

It was in vessels like this that the Aborigines

first arrived on the shores of Australia,

some thousands of years ago.

The seas here are bountiful, there's plenty of fish

and even more tasty, in Aboriginal eyes, there are lots of turtles.

Turtles are reptiles,

and therefore they must come up to the surface to breathe,

and it's when they do so that you have a chance to harpoon them.

The steel point of the harpoon has pierced the shell of the turtle,

and the detachable shaft has dropped off,

but pulling a turtle in on one line is risky, and a second harpoon

makes it more certain that the turtle doesn't escape.

It isn't a big turtle as turtles go,

but fishermen like this on a good day may catch five or six of them,

and that's enough to feed all the men's families for a week or so.

While the men are out at sea, the women may be down on the shore,

digging for shellfish, or worms, or crabs.

It's a job in which everyone can take part,

including the youngest of the children.

THEY CHAT IN NATIVE TONGUE

A BOY SCREAMS

It may not seem much,

but meat inland is scarce.

Kangaroos are few and hard to find,

and there's no other big creature to provide a solid meal of meat.

At low tide, you can paddle across the shallows to the coral reef,

and there you will find small oysters.

Where the rivers meet the sea, they form wide estuaries.

Here, the muddy shores and banks are tangled with mangrove swamps

and patches of jungle.

There's food to be found here too.

Sometimes in these long, calm stretches of clear water,

you can see big fish as long as your arm that can be harpooned.

But not today.

Up in the trees though,

there are creatures that are as tasty as the finest fish,

and with much more tender flesh than cockatoos or parrots.

RAUCOUS SQUEALING AND SQUEAKING

Giant fruit bats.

The houses of the Gunavidji, like their boats,

could scarcely be more simple.

Merely shelters of eucalyptus bark strengthened with corrugated iron

or anything else flat and waterproof that's available.

By tradition, these people are nomads.

In the past, they would never stay in one place

for more than a week or so,

and would have to move on to find fresh hunting grounds.

So they never had any need to build anything more permanent than this.

Nor do they have many possessions - a knife,

an axe, perhaps, a fishing line.

But most families do have a didgeridoo -

the drone pipe which only these northern tribes possess.

DIDGERIDOO PLAYS

MAN CHANTS IN NATIVE TONGUE

It's simply the branch of a tree,

the centre of which has been chewed away by termites

to form a hollow tube.

A length of gas piping would do almost as well,

and indeed, when the Gunavidji can get hold of a length,

they often do use it as a musical instrument.

And while their parents play,

the children practise the stamping, energetic dance

that they will later perform in their corroborees -

the ceremonial dances that still obsess their elders.

PERCUSSIVE TAPPING

THEY GRUNT

THEY GRUNT

The ritual life of the Gunavidji is extremely complicated.

Their tribe is divided into several separate totemic groups,

each claiming a special or intimate relationship

with some animal or plant.

The seasons of the year are marked by very involved rituals,

which may extend over a period of months.

The fertility of the people and of the land,

of the plants and the animals,

the cycles of the wet and dry seasons,

all must be safeguarded by the regular performance of dances,

sacrifices and ordeals, the full meaning of which

are often properly understood only by the old men of the tribe.

Each man owns highly sacred objects which belong to him

and to him alone, and which no other man

belonging to another totem may see.

He keeps them hidden away, in secret places in the bush,

and goes regularly to anoint them with pig fat,

or with the sweat from his armpits,

and to sit in silent communion with his ancestors and his gods.

Scientists say in fact that the Australian Aborigine

is the most ancient branch of mankind still surviving in the world.

They are still living at a cultural level

of that which was followed by prehistoric man in Europe

for over a million years, before he devised agriculture.

These people have no traditional knowledge of growing fields,

of planting fields for food, or of domesticating animals.

They have no more permanent settlements

than these flimsy bark shelters by which I'm sitting.

Yet, psychologists say that the Australian Aborigine

is a highly gifted and intelligent person.

They say that, in any group of them,

you find as many bright, intelligent people and as many stupid people

as you would find in a similar group from almost any other race.

There's the famous case of the estate down in the south,

where there was a mission in which the pupils of that mission

topped the examination results

of this entire state for over three years.

It's true, too, that the missionary responsible said afterwards

that the effort involved was so great,

that he could never tackle it again.

But why, if these people are so intelligent,

should they remain so primitive?

Well, the answer may be

that they were never able to develop agriculture

because their land is so harsh and so sterile.

That they were never able to get for themselves domesticated animals

because there are no large animals here suitable for domestication,

like sheep or cows.

Yet the world of the Aborigine is now changing very rapidly indeed.

Only a few hundred yards up this beach,

the Australian government is building a settlement.

Two years ago,

there was nothing here but mud flats and eucalyptus scrub.

Now, teams of Europeans are building a hospital, a school, a store,

and houses, that together will form one of the most modern and up-to-date

of all the Aboriginal welfare stations in Australia.

The Aborigines themselves are helping in the work,

and are quick to learn under the instruction of the European builders.

Every few weeks, stores arrive by sea from Darwin,

300 miles away to the west.

Boat days are exciting occasions for everybody.

For the Aborigines, newly arrived from the bush, it's a revelation.

The ship has come from a place they have never seen,

and can't imagine, and it brings real treasure -

cloth and flour, tea and sugar.

For the Europeans on this remote outpost, boat days mean mail

and fresh supplies of food and drink.

Drums of petrol for the cars,

and kerosene for refrigerators are towed ashore in a long floating line.

Here in this small plot on the rim of Arnhem Land,

the government is sending drugs and tinned fruit, books and machinery,

tractors and transistor radios -

the most modern products of 20th-century technology.

Yet you don't have to walk far beyond the station boundary

to find country that no European may have seen before.

Inland from the station, the Aborigines are being shown

how to coax the dry, sandy soil into fertility.

Special strains of drought resisting grass,

selected and developed by government research workers,

have been sent here to be planted in experimental plots.

A small donkey engine pumps up water from the creek

to provide moisture for the grass cuttings.

Soon they hope this land, sterile since history began,

will be covered by pasture rich enough to support herds of cows.

In the station itself, water pumped into sprays makes it possible

to grow cabbages and coconuts,

melons and oranges, bananas and carrots.

None of these vegetables and fruits

were known to the Aborigines before the white man came.

None could have survived here,

except by the use of modern techniques

of watering and fertilising. The men who now tend these crops

were, a mere 20 years ago,

simply gatherers of wild roots in the desert.

It had never occurred to them, until now,

that mankind was able to dominate nature,

and plant, cultivate and harvest.

It was the inability to solve this problem

that prevented the Aboriginal

climbing onto the first rung of the ladder

that leads to civilisation,

and doomed them, until now, to remain nomads.

But though the country is so poor in edible fruits,

it still possesses riches highly prized by the modern world.

In the station's sawmill,

huge hardwood trees,

felled in the surrounding bush, are cut into planks.

These planks, when shipped to Darwin, will fetch a good price,

and offset to some extent,

the enormous sums of money being spent here by the government.

The Aborigines who work here, and on the land, in the gardens,

and on the construction, receive a weekly wage,

and they spend it at the station's store.

MEN CHATTER IN NATIVE TONGUE

In return for their money, they buy mostly tobacco and tea,

knives and sugar.

MEN CHAT IN NATIVE TONGUE

Every man who works, receives each day regular meals for himself

and his family.

In the past, most of his time was spent hunting for game,

or gathering food away in the bush.

Now that the government is changing his way of life,

his family would starve unless food were provided for them.

Only those men who work on the station projects

are entitled to food.

When Aborigines from the bush come in,

they will receive food for a week free,

then, if they want to continue taking their rations,

they must start work on the station.

If they don't, then their rations are stopped.

That's the theory. In practice, no-one is ever turned away.

Very special rations are given to the children,

and, every morning, they gather outside the hospital.

BACKGROUND CHATTER AND LAUGHTER

There's powdered milk and, when it's available, pawpaw,

or some other fresh fruit from the station garden.

As more people from the surrounding country

are attracted into the station,

and desert their old nomadic way of life,

the problem of housing them all becomes more and more acute.

Some of the wood from the sawmill is retained for building.

The new houses, so different from the shelters

that have served these people until now,

are highly valued and, as yet, they are in very short supply.

This one belongs to the foreman of the sawmill,

and no-one could be more meticulously house-proud than he.

The hospital is staffed at the moment by girls from the tribe,

under the guidance of two European nursing sisters.

A doctor pays regular visits by air, to advise on difficult cases.

And in an emergency, an aeroplane can be summoned by radio

to take a patient who is seriously ill back to Darwin for treatment -

a mere three hours away by air.

The station's main concern, however, is with the children.

And the building which dominates the place at the moment is the school.

Here, each day, the children come for extra rations of milk and fruit.

The history of the Aborigines in Australia is a tragic story

of total misunderstanding and too often of brutality.

A century ago, battles between them and the white settlers

were so frequent as to be almost unremarkable.

It was a fight between boomerangs and rifles,

between spears and chemical poisons put secretly in waterholes.

And the outcome of such unequal battles could never be in doubt.

When Europeans first arrived here,

there were about 250,000 Aborigines in Australia.

Now, a mere 45,000 are left.

Few Europeans wanted to settle

in this barren, savagely hostile wilderness of Arnhem Land,

and so this is one of the last places

where the Aborigines have survived in any number.

The teacher at the school is the wife

of one of the government staff administering the station.

CHILDREN CHATTER IN NATIVE TONGUE

TEACHER CLAPS

That's good.

Good morning, boys and girls.

CHILDREN: Good morning, teacher.

How are you today?

THEY ANSWER

Very well, thank you. Now we'll say our prayer.

- We thank you, God... - CHILDREN: We thank you, God...

- ..for the world so sweet. - ..for the world so sweet.

- We thank you for... - We thank you for...

- ..the food we eat. - ..the food we eat.

- We thank you for... - We thank you for...

- ..the birds that sing. - ..the birds that sing.

- We thank you, God... - We thank you, God...

- ..for everything. - ..for everything.

THEY SING: # Land of freedom Land we cherish

# Wearing beauty like a crown

# Where in Heaven, brightly shining

# All the stars of God look down

# Like a vision they abide

# Symbol of our hope and pride

# Send our songs to Heaven above

# Land of mine, freedom's shrine

# God be with you Dear land we love. #

Yet, in a way, it's not just the Aboriginal who has to be educated.

The white man has to be educated, too.

For the Australian government has embarked on a policy of assimilation.

The Australian Aborigine is not to be cut off

in his own tribal reserves, like some living museum specimen,

he is to be encouraged to become assimilated into the community

around him, and to take his place in the 20th century.

Yet you don't have to go far in a town to find people

who will tell you that the Aboriginal is dishonest,

drunken - if he gets the chance - unreliable,

and little better than an animal.

It's these people who will have to be educated to realise

that the problems of leaping within the space of a couple of generations

from prehistory into the 20th century are enormous.

To realise that these people here have their own code of behaviour

and morals, which they adhere to strictly,

and which are suitable to a primitive nomadic existence.

And that to change these morals to the morals suitable for

a 20th-century town, to make such a change, is enormously difficult.

Yet, in spite of this prejudice,

the Australian government is going ahead with its bold policy.

Already, legislation has been passed to give the vote to the Aborigine.

Now, people, I've come along here today

to tell you about a new law which gives to you,

the Aboriginal people, the right to vote,

and elect members of the Legislative Council in Darwin,

and the member in the House of Representatives,

which is the Commonwealth Parliament in Canberra.

Now, I've brought along with me these pictures,

and I'm going to use them, in my talk to you, to tell you about

these elections, and the meaning and purpose of voting.

Now, this first picture that I have here,

it shows the position, as it has been in the past.

You'll notice here that this is a building,

and outside is a sign with the words "polling booth".

Now, you will see white people here

are going into this polling booth,

and they are going in there to elect, or choose the men

who will go into the Legislative Council,

and make the laws which we must all obey.

Now, over here, you will see Aboriginal people...

..standing out here under the tree,

and they have had no right to have a say

in who these men will be

that are chosen to go into the Legislative Council.

Now, I have here two men who you all know, Peter and Mick -

two of your own people, and they understand about it,

and they will talk to you, if you sit down with them,

and help you to learn and understand about this voting.

HE TALKS IN NATIVE TONGUE

Now there has been a new law which gives to Aboriginal people,

those who are 21 years of age or more, the right to vote...

'to have a say in choosing these men who sit in the Legislative Council,

'and also to have a right to say who will be the member

'for the Northern Territory in the House of Representatives at Canberra.

'Now, this next picture that I have shows you one of these men

'who have accepted this right -

'an Aboriginal man, he has accepted this right -

'and he is advancing up the stairs,

'because this is a step forward.

'Now, before we can do this, we must learn

'and understand about elections, the purpose and the meaning of elections,

'and how you vote. And to do this, this is why I have come along here

'to ask you people to sit down with us here and talk about it'

until we understand about voting,

and that's just what this picture shows you.

It shows men and women,

because women have just as much right to vote as men,

but it shows them sitting down and talking about it,

learning about it, and understanding about it,

so that, when the time comes, they can make a free choice

of whether or not to accept this right and get on the roll,

so that they can vote when an election comes along.

People, now that I have explained this voting

and election to you...

..I'm going to ask you now to go away

and think about it and talk about it.

And for those who do not understand,

I would like the others to explain to them.

I'm not going to say much more now, except this.

I think that this right that you have been given

is the most important right possible that could have been given to you.

I have told you before that you have the right to accept it

or reject it, that is your choice...

..but it is very important that you think very carefully about it.

Thank you very much.

DAVID: Perhaps it's too much to hope that many of the adults

on this station will ever fully understand

their responsibilities as voting citizens,

or be in any position to fulfil the obligations

that joining the society of the 20th century imposes on them,

but the rights of these people, the first Australians,

are the rights of all human beings.

And the full effectiveness of Australia's policy

will be apparent not now, but in 20 years' time.

DIDGERIDOO PLAYS AND ABORIGINAL CHANTING